Often the best thing is what surprises
you. On a cold day in October—in a drizzling, windswept food-cart
parking lot with a trash-can-style campfire and an immobile school bus
that serves as a dining hall—I ordered the inzimino from Burrasca.
It arrived looking like a Louisiana duck circa 2010, or a three-day
preparation of seaweed on the Oregon Coast: an inky, unparseable mess of
brackish green. But it was heaven in a to-go box, a warm, herbal,
wine-soaked spinach dish studded with squid. The intensely rich Tuscan
peasant stew tastes like nothing else in town—not even the other
rendition of the dish across the river—blanketing the palate with
startling complexity. I buy it regularly in a parking lot, but I’d be
just as stoked if I got it at Ava Gene’s. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

I’m too cheap to eat out much. My
co-workers know this: They’ve stopped asking if I want takeout at lunch,
well aware that I’ll instead be nuking my beans and rice. So when I do
go out, I want something either extravagantly delicious or supremely
comforting. For the former, that means mussels at St. Jack,
bathing in a garlicky vermouth sauce that has just enough creme fraiche
to make it rich but not so much that it’s heavy. The dish comes with a
hunk of crusty baguette, and I always ask for more. And when I just want
some comfort food? Then it’s Sen Yai’s phat sii ew, a plate of
thick wok-fried noodles, bits of pork and Chinese broccoli. When I had
it the first time, loaded up with chili vinegar, I was exhausted and
grumpy as hell. While it didn’t quite cure me, it went as far as
anything could have. REBECCA JACOBSON.

If you figured one deep-fried animal skin
tastes pretty much like every other deep-fried animal skin, you figured
wrong. I realized this on my first bite into Sok Sab Bai’s fried chicken skins.
Doused in the housemade sweet and fiery Da Sauce, this $3 appetizer
from the Southeast 21st Avenue Cambodian restaurant was better than
anything else I had this year. And while co-editing WW’s
Restaurant Guide, I had some pretty amazing food. The chicken skins were
so crunchy, so hot, so sweet, so fatty, so wonderful. It punched down
my pleasure receptors, a jolt that didn’t fade until the check was paid.
The skins were a one-off at the time, so I almost told you about Le
Pigeon’s beef cheek Bourguignon instead. But a call to Sok Sab Bai
confirms that it’s now permanently on the menu. Go and try—it’s the best
$3 you’ll spend all year. MARTIN CIZMAR.

When the waiter set down my bowl of clam chowder at Ox,
I started screaming and flapping my hands like Paul Rudd at a One
Direction concert. And I hadn’t even tasted it yet. In a restaurant
whose signature dish is a giant pile of grilled meat, the relatively
restrained chowder is the dish that, to me, signifies pure
decadence—meaty and savory and spicy, with smoky bone marrow and
jalapeños lying atop delicate, fresh clams swimming in a buttery broth
whose very dregs demand to be sopped up with the ends of Ox’s crusty
bread. ADRIENNE SO.

The four bright-orange dollops of uni appeared as the umpteenth course in a $30 omakase journey at Tanuki.
Chef Janis Martin won’t serve it unless she can get her paws on the
best uni available—the stuff flown in from Japan. At this point, the
room (and the tentacle porn playing on a flat screen above the bar) was
blurry, but the explosion of briny, creamy, unadorned sea urchin snapped
my palate back to attention. The uni itself was stellar, yet what it
truly represents is a luminous moment in the most delicious, drunken and
outrageous four hours I spent anywhere in 2013. ANDREA DAMEWOOD.

When Levant opened on East
Burnside Street in March, it wowed jaded restaurant regulars with a
novel menu melding Middle Eastern, European and local flavors. The one
dish that captured my fancy was chef and owner Scott Snyder’s simple
rendition of deep-fried green almonds. More precisely described
as almond fruits, these fleeting treats are harvested in the short span
just before the familiar kernel and shell inside have developed to
nutlike maturity. Few farmers even bother. Resembling oversized olives
in color and texture, their taste is pleasantly tart. Fresh from
Levant’s fryer with just a sprinkle of salt and chili flake, the taste
memory already has me looking ahead to next spring. MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN.

Evoe has been one of my favorite Portland restaurants since it opened in 2008—I reviewed it for WW back
then—and I’m so excited that Evoe chef Kevin Gibson recently opened
Davenport, though I haven’t been lucky enough to visit his new
restaurant yet. I’ve never had anything at Evoe that I didn’t absolutely
love. When I was going through a rough spell last year, it was one of
my favorite spots to dinealone for a late, long lunch. Evoe’s Euro vibe invites that. Early in the year I had a beet salad at Evoe that
I’ve re-created in various ways at home ever since. It was tossed with a
light, tart, creamy vinaigrette, pistachios, some fresh herbs and I’m
honestly not sure what else. Memory fades but the feeling does not.
Every bite made me feel loved. Beet fucking salad. Usually it’s the
simple things. LIZ CRAIN.

Full disclosure: Lela’s Bistro, the Vietnamese lunch spot
housed in a converted Victorian house on Northwest 23rd Avenue, is
around the corner from WW’s office. As someone who’d eat nothing
but Famous Stars were there a Carl’s Jr. nearby, my favorite dishes tend
to be those closest to my mouth. That said, the fact that Lela’s pork belly banh mi sandwich
is within biting distance from where I spend five days of the week is
just about the most blessed fringe benefit of this job: The titular
chunks of fatty meat hit a succulent sweet spot between chewy and
crispy, spiced flavorfully and stuffed in a warm, thick baguette.
Perhaps one of you food dorks out there is scoffing, but if you know a
better sandwich, please deliver it to my desk, because that’s the only
way I’ll bother with it. MATTHEW SINGER.